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MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



B1 

ROBERT Gi COUSINS, LL. I) 



ON THE 

LIFE AND SERVICES 

OF THE LATE 



Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE 
OF THE STATE OF IOWA 



ON ITS INVITATION 

MARCH 16, 1911 



^ - =J 



£76 £f 



Dolliver inherited no political prestige. He had no Duke of 
Rutland for a sponsor. The cliffy hills and lofty mountains of 
Virginia were his great godfathers and the honeyed valleys of 
that romantic birthland whispered their soft dreams into his 
eager, boyhood ears. The rivers and the hills of loyal Illinois 
gave welcome to his trudging weary feet and encouraged his 
exalted hope. The rolling plains and honeysuckled woodlands 
of our river-bordered Iowa sang thrice welcome to the bright- 
eyed continental wayfarer and won his wondrous heart and 
scintillating brain for its historic heritage. 



3 o v u ■_ 



Members and Guests of the Legislature of Iowa: 

Your greatly esteemed invitation, which I could regard but 
virtually as a complimentary command to appear before you on 
this occasion, could not fail to bring to my mind another event many 
years ago, when occupying seat numbered "69," on yonder aisle, 
the House of Representatives of the Twenty-first Assembly of our 
State elected me for a far different duty to perform in a matter 
then pending before the Senate. And scarcely could it have been 
imagined then that a quarter of a century later, I should be bid- 
den by this Assembly to speak in memory of one who was then 
my earliest companion in the campaigns of his adopted common- 
wealth, this my own native State. 

But the destinies of men can seldom be foreseen and fate 
forever loves to mystify their future and their plans. Nevertheless, 
it seemed certain to many of us then that Jonathan P. Dolliver was 
made and marked for eminent success. 

No words of mine are needed now to fasten up the fame which, 
by his great abilities, he wrote across the nation's sky. No praises 
or encomiums are required to carry his illustrious name into the 
devoted households and the hamlets and the cities of the State of 
Iowa. 

Mysteries of Life. 

Human life, in fact all life, is the strangest and most won- 
derful of the mysteries. So, too, is death — save for the teachings 
of some philosophers — likewise mysterious. But the natural phe- 
nomena of autumn time with gently fading colors, with swift reced- 
ing vigor, seem almost easily accounted for — an inexorable, known, 
expected fact. The setting sun and all its twilight hues are sure, 
decided, known, and fixed as is the picture painted by the artist's 
brush. 



But, who feels certain of the dawn or of a single day, much 
less of the course of a human life? Will the sign of Aries or Leo, 
or Sagittarius or Aquarius or any sign or star under which a human 
life starts out, determine its course, its rising or its downfall? Not so. 
The teachers of the zodiacal science tell us that the possibilities of one 
born in the sign of Aquarius are greatest of all and also may be the 
poorest and the worst. How, then, is a human soul to be separated 
from the infinite mysteries that attend it? Who can know what 
bloom of sunny clime, or frigid zone, or axioms of our childhood 
faith, or mystic teachings of some far-off land shall lift, or thwart, or 
guide straight onward to its fairest goal a human soul? How is it 
that in one case environment, associations, or conditions shall inspire 
a human mind so that it leads on to the splendid glory of uncommon 
and incalculable achievement, may be by winning the souls of men 
with mighty eloquence and reason, or thrilling them with melodies so 
great and sweet that they seem almost to have been dying through- 
out the centuries of time with the pain of silence; and in another case 
of the very same conditions and environment, some other human being 
seems ignomimously to lose itself along the way of life without achieve- 
ment or distinguishment and without the exultation of success. I have 
sometimes thought that the secret of it all is like the secret of a perfect 
love, which in our mortal world can never be, without complete, un- 
stinted sacrifice of self. 

However all this may be, the man whose brilliant and unusual 
career we memorialize today, achieved and felt in fullest measure 
the exultation of singular success. He put his life upon the altar 
of his hope and art and there it was consecrated to the end. 

Environment. 

To be born of frugal, healthy parents in an environment that 
is stimulating is a great advantage. The green fields of Virginia far 
away, and the hills and vales and mountains of that statesmen-mould- 
ing commonwealth, first heard the voice of Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver. 
They had heard the unctuous and exhorting voice of his dear old 
father before him, and the voices of seven of our presidents in their 
youthful days. But Virginia was the cradle also of thousands whose 



reputations never crossed its hoi (Ins . Dollivei was born also in a most 
favorable sign, on the 6th day oi February, 1858; bul million . ol 
whose names the world and you and 1 have nevei heard, first saw tin- 
light in that same sign and under that same In kv star. 

Training and Tugging. 

Educated well at home and finished will: a college touch, our 
seventeen-year-old Virginian looked over the mountains ol his birth- 
land, took the sun for his pilot and Horace Greeley for his advisoi 
and started on foot for the empire of the pioneers. We were all 
here waiting to help him and to shout for him. Both ol my '.'unci 
fathers had been here for more than thirty-five years welcoming 
such bone and flesh and blood. He tarried in Illinois and dug 
potatoes while a local school board were deciding to elect him 
teacher. Little did the people of Sandwich, Illinois, know what 
they were missing when they let the young Virginian leave them 
and locate in Iowa between the two great rivers. But of course 
they and nobody else ever knows what may come out of a hickory 
shirt and a celluloid collar. Thousands had come away from 
there, thousands from New England and Ohio and Indiana and 
other states, but nobody knew which ones were geniuses until the 
mettle of their intellects came in contact with the flint of circum- 
stances and experience. 

When Dolliver came to Ft. Dodge in the Spring of 1878, 
nobody knew about it except his brother who accompanied him. and 
the landlord of whom they rented a small office. When the struggle 
became so hard that they had to sleep in the office, his brother went 
back to Virginia into the ministry and Jonathan, as he tells us him- 
self, worked on the streets for a dollar and a half per day. 

Awakening of Souls. 
The soul of every individual must always have an awakening 
if it is to expand. If that awakening does not come, we shall 
never know much of the individual. Perhaps many lives have been 
wasted for want of an awakening. 



Nothing tends so much to bring out true worth as trouble. 
Nobody ever amounted to very much in this world unless he had to. 
The best flowers of genius have blossomed from Bleeding Hearts. 

Bulwer Lytton tells us of his young physician who studied 
and who suffered long and patiently in the community and that 
finally "Abbey Hill let him feel its pulse." Robert Burns suf- 
fered and sang so sweetly in the provincial region of Ayr that 
finally he was invited to Edinburgh. 

When Ft. Dodge had discovered Dolliver, they must share 
him with the whole State. He was invited to Des Moines. He 
spoke to a state convention and the nation took up his name. Of 
course he plagued the opposition and had fun with the mugwumps. 
He said they treated their consciences as if they were the stock 
in trade of a baking powder factory — they solemnly protest that 
everybody's conscience has alum in it except theirs. But no mat- 
ter, he was awakened and from that moment his real life began. 
He was a permanent factor in American politics and in all political 
campaigns. He campaigned with Blaine and with all of the best 
of them from that time on. 

With the enviable reputation which his first convention speech 
had given him throughout the country, and with his local prestige 
which had been gradually building and with the earnest aid of such 
strong characters as the late Governor Carpenter, it is not strange 
that he was soon chosen for Congress in the Tenth District. 

Intellect and Office. 

There is always in every community a natural fraternity of 
intellectuality. There is a certain magnetism of intelligence that is 
always and everywhere irresistible. Thomas B. Reed once said : 
"There is no refinement quite equal to the graceful, mighty intel- 
lectuality. That of itself is always a commanding charm. It rules 
wherever it appears. Wealth bows to it and seeks its patronage 
while even ignorance reveres it." 

Men are chosen for important offices, such as Congress, on 
account of being singularly known in the communities for something, 
either for unusual ability or for some signal success. Of course, by 
dint of dollars, in preliminary squabbles, men sometimes break into 
important offices, creating wonderment as to how they got there. But, 



as a general rule, a man's name on the roll ol the Ameri an ( 01 
can be accounted for. I remember on entering I ongr< nearly two 
decades ago I began running over the list of names and t<> m\. h .ii- 
the probable reason for the presence of certain membei there. I here 
was the name White. How did he get there? On investigation I found 
he was the author of White's Yucatan chewing gum, a wealth) gentle- 
man, the leading citizen of his community, and a large employer of 
workmen. Then there was the name Cochran, the famous Irish 
orator of New York. There was the name Sorg, whom I found to 
be one of the leading tobacco manufacturers of the world, a large 
employer of men and a liberal spirit in his State. Then there was 
Thomas Dunn English, partly accounted for by the fact that he was 
the author of the famous "Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt," and so on through 
the list. The name Dolliver was there, already accounted for by his 
fame fairly well established before he came. He had been in the 
noted Fifty-first Congress, known as the Reed Congress, and had 
taken part in the discussion of the McKinley Bill. He was already 
established so that his appearance for a speech attracted attention 
and commanded silence. 

The Great Arena. 

The House of Representatives, under certain circumstances, is 
probably the greatest arena in the world. Few men have been able 
to hold and control it for any great length of time. You can count 
on the fingers of your hands the occasions during the last two decades 
when different speakers have commanded it in such quietude that the 
speaker could be distinctly heard for a continuous hour. Under such 
circumstances it is a rare and wonderful arena. The English House 
of Commons is a play house compared with it. I have heard Balfour 
and Bannerman on the same day in the House on a government issue 
and have witnessed a dozen occasions in the American House of Rep- 
resentatives that far surpassed such a noted session of the Commons. 
Usually in the House there is constant conversation whi'.e the ordinary 
member is speaking. That is the general rule. But sometimes, while 
full to overflowing, the House becomes intensely quiet and remains so 
if the speaker has the ability to hold it. Dolliver was one of the 
few who at times commanded silence. 



It is not my purpose on this occasion to produce a biography or 
the history of a congressional epoch. I shall content myself with 
citing a few instances of this man's singular power as a speaker in 
that great arena. 

Early Advocate of Navy. 
Not Theodore Roosevelt, nor any Secretary of the Navy, or 
Assistant Secretary, but Johnathan P. Dolliver, early in his congres- 
sional career, in the Fifty-third Congress of 1 894, long before the 
Spanish War, was the first to make an effectual appeal for a sub- 
stantial navy. On May 9, 1894, among other strong utterances in 
the House of Representatives, he said: 

"I came into the Fifty-first Congress and, by some mysterious movement of 
Providence that I never was able to understand, I was assigned to duty upon the 
Committee on Naval Affairs. I am very glad that it was so, because it led me 
to interest myself in this great national enterprise and to enlist the sympathetic 
interest of a great community which is not directly concerned in the management 
and expenditures of those sums which Congress puts at the disposal of the Navy 
Department. As a friend of the new American Navy, I want now to enter a 
humble protest against what appears to me to be a conspiracy of scandal and 
libel and unfounded criticism that is fast undermining the faith of the people of 
the United States in the integrity of the administration of the Navy Department 
and in the value and seaworthiness of the new steel ships, which are the pride 
and the boast of the people of the United States." 

Great Counselors and Common Sense. 

In that same Fifty-third Congress, while his alert mind was study- 
ing the propositions of reduction of protection for our agricultural 
products in the Wilson Bill, he came forward in behalf of his con- 
stituents and in behalf of sound principle, in a mighty speech, some 
of which can be appropriately and non-partisanly quoted here, be- 
cause it signalizes the name of Andrew Jackson, the most conspicuous 
of Democrats, in agreement and in sympathy with the views of Ben- 
jamin Franklin, Horace Greeley and Abraham Lincoln on the most 
vital issue of our industrial history. On that great occasion, when the 
most illustrious minds were engaged in the debate, Representative 
Dolliver, who had before that time manifested in a powerful way his 
great and genuine interest in the cause of the farmers of our state by 
a continued and mighty effort in behalf of the settlers of the Des 
Moines River region, entered the congressional debate again in the 



cause of the farmers and wool growers of the country and is fairly 
represented in that historic record by these strong and eloquent utt€l 
ances : 

' Common sense is the most splendid possession of the human mind. It is 
the only absolutely reliable human faculty. If this world were full of phil- 
osophers, of statesmen, of orators, of political economists, it would hardly be 
possible for a plain man to live in it at all. 1 hey would talk h : m to death; 
or if he escaped that they would argue him, after the manner of Edward At- 
kinson's recent address to the workingmen of Boston, into the belief thai by 
some new pr.nciple of cookery the shin bone of a beef can be so prepared as 
not to be distinguished from a sirloin steak. (Laughter.) Fortunately, we have 
had in the history of the country at least four resplendent types of American 
common sense — Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Horace Greeley, and 
Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) 

'If the young men of the United States can find a doctrine of practical 
politics upon which that little group of statesmen are agreed, it is a waste of 
time to hang around the lecture rooms of a free-trade university in the hope 
of getting a patentable improvement on their wisdom. (Applause.) The doc- 
trine of the protective tariff, vindicated by the united judgment of these men, 
may be attacked, may even be for a time discredited, but can not be perma- 
nently dislodged from the sober judgment of the people. The storm of clamor 
and hearsay and interest may threaten it, but in the end it will find an anchorage 
in the public judgment that is sure and steadfast. Can any sane man bel:eve 
that God gave to our fathers the far-sighted prudence of Benjamin Franklin if He 
had intended this country to be guided by the advice of John Randolph, who 
used to say that he would go a mile out of his way to kick a sheep? (Laughter 
and applause.) 

"Can it be believed that Andrew Jackson made the eighth day of January 
notable and famous only to give certain orators of our own times an opportunity 
to exploit the free-trade notions upon which the ordinance of nullification in 
South Carolina was predicated in 1832? (Applause.) Is it credible that 
Horace Greeley, faithful journalist that he was, made a daily record of the 
famine, in the midst of which the people celebrated the Christmas of 1854, if 
the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is now to persuade us that 
the starving multitudes of that afflicted winter were really enjoy;ng the bless- 
ings of a 'symmetrical industrial development'? (Laughter.) 

"Can any man in his senses suppose that Abraham Lincoln was called 
to think, to labor, to suffer, and at last to die, that through his martyrdom the 
struggling millions of the earth might be free, if, after all, his countrymen are 
to cast away his counsel and reorganize their affairs on the lines laid down in 
the Confederate constitution? (Loud applause.) So that I for one am not 
discouraged, even if this Congress should enact the proposed bill into law with- 
out substantial modification, because I know that the people of the United 

1 1 



States, having learned their lesson in the midst of broken fortunes and im- 
poverished industries, will come back speedily to the historic standards of 
American common sense." (Applause.) 

Save for the forensic contests of the Fifty-third Congress, in 
which the mighty intellect of Thomas B. Reed was actively engaged 
upon the floor, those of the first session of the Fifty-fifth, in 1897, 
were perhaps the greatest in our recent history. On the 23d day of 
March, in that great year of restorative legislation in Congress, Mr. 
Dolhver made one of the most attractive speeches of his life. I quote 
a brief sample of Dollivenan style and strength: 

The American Farm. 

"Originally the American farm, except in some textile fibers, was entirely 
without competition, and for that reason no duties were needed to protect the 
ordinary products of the farm. But that slate of things no longer exists in the 
United States. Last year Mexico sent to us nearly 300,000 head of cattle. 1 
received a telegram night before last from a packing house in Chicago, stating 
that the proposed duty of $6 on Mexican cattle was prohibitory, and adding 
that they were buying their canners in Mexico. I replied that the duty of $6 
on Mexican cattle was intended to be prohibitory, and that we had canners for 
sale out in our own western states. (Laughter and applause on the Republican 
side.) Last year the Dominion of Canada — and I should like to have the at- 
tention of our friend from Missouri (Mr. Dockery) — poured into the American 
market place, a market place helpless and distracted, millions of dollars' worth 
of the ordinary products of the farm. 

"Against that state of things, whether the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Dockery) knows it or not, the American farmer has complained, and his com- 
plaint has reached the ears of the committee which prepared these schedules. I 
do not know but what we shall live long enough, to be able to get into Canada 
without going out of the United States (applause) ; but until that time comes 
I intend to support no tariff law that does not set before the American farm 
the shield of the same law that shelters the American factory. (Applause.) 

Food and Factories. 

"I live in a State almost entirely devoted to agriculture and if our people 
out there had no other interest in a protective tariff except its indirect effect on the 
American market place, if they had no foreign competitors, as my friend (Mr. 
Dockery) claims, I should still feel authorized to appear for them in behalf of 
this bill, because if there is one thing that we have learned by experience, and 
a bitter experience at that, it is the hardsh'p and burden of trying to sell farm 
produce in a market place stricken and prostrate by the idleness of a popula- 
tion once busy and prosperous. (Applause.) The farmers of the United 
States, my brethren, are eager, not for the fabled markets of the world; they 
are longing for the music of the old factory bell, call.ng back the idle millions 



to the deserted workshops of the United Stales. (Applause oil the Republii an 
side.) The roar of furnaces that are now cold, the noise of looms that arc 
now silent, will mean a good deal to the working people of the United States. 
It will mean not less to the scattered households on distant prairies remote from 
smoke and noise where, for four years, industrious men have seen the fruits 
of their toil waste in the fields that produced them. 

"Open the Statistical Abstract of the United Stales. What do these figures 
mean? The consumption of wheat fallen off in the United Stales a bushel 
and a half for every man, woman, and child in it; the consumption of corn 
fallen off nearly a billion bushels in a single year. Gentlemen, there is 'the 
skeleton in the corn-crib,' if you will pardon a phrase from your friend Govern- 
or Carpenter, of Iowa, affectionately remembered by the older members of this 
House. 

"I stood last winter at a street corner in the city of New York and saw the 
hungry multitudes wailing to be fed by the hand of Christian charity; and as 
I looked upon that general assembly of poverty, that rendezvous of human misery, 
I said to myself, 'Here is a fac simile of the famine of 1855, described by Horace 
Greeley, in the old New York Tribune, when before his eyes thousands of men 
fought like wild beasts for a place at A. T. Stewart's daily banquet of free- 
trade soup.' 

Wool and Wisdom. 

"The proposed bill reclassifies the clothing wool, notwithstanding the state- 
ment of my friend from Colorado (Mr. Bell) to the contrary. It puts in 
the class of clothing wool all the wools of the world that can be used for 
clothing wools, and it restores the protective rates of 1890, in order that the 
American flocks may not be further scattered and in order that agriculture may 
enter upon and possess this half-occupied field of domestic production. The 
existing law was ingeniously framed to give cheap wool to the factories, and it 
accomplished that, incidentally putting most of them into the hands of a re- 
ceiver. (Laughter.) Therein lies a double affliction on the American farm, 
because no rate of duty, as my friend from South Carolina ought to know, is 
worth anything to the farmer unless the factories of the United States are busy, 
since the American clip must either be sold in the United States or kept over 
as a souvenir of legislative stupidity. (Laughter.) 

"The woolen factories of New England, which my friend from South 
Carolina talked about, r.ever asked for free wool; and they accepted it with 
doubts and fears; nor is it too much to say that all their fears have been realized, 
for the statement made yesterday by our honored leader (Mr. Dingley), as 
to the effect of this legislation on the farm and factory and en the Treasury 
is fully corroborated by the official reports. It was intended only to slaughter 
the sheep; it has operated to slaughter the factories and to slaughter the 
Treasury. They said that the price of wool would be kept up by the activity 
of the mills, and the revenues of the Government would be kept up by the 
activity of the custom-house. Their theory is as beautiful as any dream that 
ever grew in the imagination of man. We were not only to hold our own, but 



we were to go out with our free wool cloth and divide with Bradford and 
Chemnitz the job of clothing the naked inhabitants of the earth. (Laughter.) 
"That was the theory. What has actually happened may be stated in a 
few plain words and figures. Ten million sheep driven to the slaughter; 80,- 
000,000 pounds of American wool displaced in our own market; the importa- 
tion of cloth multiplied by 2; half the woolen mills idle and locked up, and 
the other half on scant wages and short time; the Treasury of the United 
States $21,000,000 shy (laughter); our choice and select gentry disporting 
themselves in German, English, and French clothes, and the rest of us shinning 
around in overcoats purchased during Harrison's administration." (Applause and 
great laughter.) 

War With Spain. 

On the evening of April 1 0, 1 898, invited by the late Presi- 
dent McKinley, I attended a conference consisting of the President, 
the Secretary of State and two members of the United States Senate, 
all, save one, now deceased, to consider the matter of our interference 
with Spanish government in the island of Cuba. Soon after entering 
that conference President McKinley said: "I propose to do every- 
thing for peace that is possible to do with honor to our country. 
What do you think, and what have you heard from the people?" 
I said to President McKinley and to the other members of the con- 
ference that I had spent several years on the Committee of Foreign 
affairs doing the best I could to prevent war; that I had pigeon- 
holed many inflammatory resolutions and letters, and that in my 
opinion there was a matter of far greater importance than the one of 
immediate interference with Spain, and that was whether we were to 
recognize the independence of the "Cuba Junta," the government then 
proposed there, which, as everyone versed in international law knew, 
would put our officers and soldiers under command of Cuba generals. 
The President said: "That must not be. That must by all means 
be avoided." 

On the next day the message of intervention came to the Con- 
gress, and the vote of the committee and of the House sustained the 
President's position. 

These matters I have stated preliminary to offering the Record 
that shou'd be quoted, in fairness, concerning Senator Dolliver's loyal 
and masterful upholding of the late President's hands in the difficult 
and trying proceedings of the Spanish War, and of the adjustments 
that attended its final outcome. 



To begin with, on the 25 th of January, 1 899, he had this to say 
concerning the beginning of that war, which I have mostly in memory, 
but which I read, as I have others of his words, from the ( ongressional 
Record, so they may be accurately stated: 

"It was a hopeful and admirable thing that when the question of declar- 
ing war arose the nat.on spake as one man, putting away the contentions of 
domestic politics in the presence of the public danger. It suggested a moral 
unity never before attained in the United States. There were Tories in the 
Revolution, there was an opposition party in the War of 1812, our army in 
Mexico never got beyond the sound of partisan disputes in this Capitol. Every 
movement of the Government in the Civil War was impeded by a restless and 
malignant minority in both Houses of Congress. But in the war with Spain, for 
the first time in our national history, whatever was done was done by the whole 
American people, in a lofty national spint, from which all the littleness of political 
strife entirely disappeared. 

"The grandest scene ever enacted in this House was that historic day in 
the last session when every man on this floor voted to commit to the President 
of the United States the solemn duty of preparing for the national defense, and 
for that purpose placed at his disposal the resources of the Government." 

Laurels for Lawton. 

One of the best and greatest utterances of our distinguished 
friend was that concerning General Lawton on March 7, 1 900, when 
he, with many of our volunteers and regulars, were striving to estab'ish 
orderly and peaceful government in the Philippines. This is as non- 
partisan as patriotism itself, and sets an example of eloquence and 
high-minded utterance of the highest order. I read it, lest some 
precious word might be omitted: 

"A few days ago in this city, in a stately ceremonial, his comrades carried 
to Arlington the bravest of the brave. It was he who, at the time when the 
printing presses of America were busy with deeds of valor furnished in manu- 
script by gentlemen who performed them, standing before the multitude at 
Macon, could only say, 'I am not an orator; I am a soldier. I am not a hero; 
I am a Regular.' (Applause.) 

"What right have people living under the shelter of our laws to embitter 
the service of a man like that as he rides under unfriendly skies, careless even 
of his life, at the head of an American command? Is it not a shame that this 
old sold'er, who for forty years had obeyed the orders of this Government, re- 
ceiving hardly enough to support his family and educate his children, with no 
ambition except to do his duty, should in his last great campaign hear mes- 
sages from home so filled with banter and criticism and reproach that his heart 
sank within him, and in his agony of spirit, seeing the shadow upon him, he 
wrote the words I am about to read? 



" 'I wish to God that this whole Philippine situation could be known by 
every one in America as I know it. If the real history, inspiration, and con- 
ditions of this insurrection, and the influences, local and external, that now en- 
courage the enemy, as well as the actual possibilities of these islands and 
peoples and their relations to this great East could be understood at home, we 
would hear no more talk of unjust "shooting of Government" into the Filipinos 
or of hauling down our flag in the Philippines. 

" 'If the so-called anti-imperialists would honestly ascertain the truth on the 
ground, and not in distant America, they, whom I believe to be honest men 
misinformed, would be convinced of the error of their statements and coi 
elusions and of the unfortunate effect of their publications here. If I am shot 
by a Filipino bullet, it might as well come from one of my own men, because 
I know from observation, confirmed by captured prisoners, that the continuant 
of the fighting is chiefly due to reports that are sent out from America. 

"Standing by the grave of Henry W. Lawton, I appeal to the patrioti. 
millions of my countrymen without regard to politics to put an end to tru. 
pestilent in fire in the rear which for nearly two years has followed our Army i>. 
the Philippines, filling the hearts of our own soldiers with despair and the heart* 
of their enemy with comfort and good cheer." (Loud applause.) 

Gratitude to the Grand Old Man. 

During his mighty and conspicuous service in the Senate, and 
near its close, came the most delicate test of Senator Dolliver's bril- 
liant career. After enjoying the helpful friendship of one of the most 
magnanimous statesmen Iowa ever had, William B. Allison, and 
when the character of that friend was questioned in one of the prom- 
inent magazines of the day at a crucial time when his candidacy was 
before the people of our state, for the last time, Senator Dolliver said 
to me: 

"I realize that I am the one who should do it, and I am going out among 
our people and take up the cause of the Grand Old Man. I care not what it 
may cost me, he has been my friend and the friend of every young man in Iowa 
public life." 

And he went, risking even his health and life. I mention this 
noble event of his career, not for the purpose of awakening any issue 
which was involved in that campaign so far as the politics of this state 
was concerned, but simply to call to memory the gratitude and faith- 
fulness of the man who had the courage to risk all that he had at stake 
personal'y. and to offer to the present generation an example of sin- 
gular and beautiful gratitude. Whoever is without gratitude is lacking 
in virtue and in manhood. 



Dolliver stood by the side of his lifetime friend evincing the noble 
loyalty of a comrade and a gentleman, and mankind approves his 
course. He knew, as we all know, that the notorious magazine asser- 
tion that Senator Allison was a multi-millionaire by illy-gotten gains 
was a purchased fa'sehood, and he knew that Senator Allison led the 
simplest sort of life while he labored from early morn to late at night 
for his country and especially for Iowa and her people. He knew 
that if Senator Allison had sought great wealth he could easily have 
gained it. But he knew that he was not wealthy. He did not know 
then, as is known now, that, including trust funds within his manage- 
ment and belonging to others, his total accounting at the time of his 
death was less than a hundred and fifty thousand dol'ars. But he did 
know that Senator Allison was an honest man, and the charge that he 
was not stirred the blood of this loyal Virginian and set his eloquent 
lips on fire. And while they may have uttered words that stung and 
sounded harsh, the spirit of their utterance was generously considered 
by understanding minds, and the motive was everywhere considered 
equivalent to exoneration. I would be a coward on my own account 
and a coward on his account should I omit mentioning that worthy 
episode of his illustrious career, and I do not hesitate to offer every 
word of this memorial, so far as it is applicable and so far as virtue 
is concerned, in honor of my life-long friend, Senator William B. 
Allison. 

Integrity of Public Men. 

It belongs to history and to the memory of Senator Dolliver to 
say also that he knew that the life of the average legislator is an up- 
right and an honest life. He knew, for example, that Thomas B. 
Reed, the foremost of American politicians, was sometimes seen going 
about the railroad ticket offices in Washington trying to buy a cheap 
ticket to his home in Portland, Maine. He knew that Tom Reed 
never had a railroad pass, as many of us never had, on any railroad 
entering the city of Washington. Senator Dolliver knew perfectly well 
that the average legislator has all he can do to meet his expenses; thar 
as a rule he is not a man of wealth ; that he is a representative of the 
people not only in title, but in financial status as well; and he knew 
this by the experience of many years; and he came to the state and told 
the story of that grand life that had been devoted for the good of his 
country and of his state. 



A Rainbow in the Gloom. 

Remembering his own hard struggle for a start and for success in 
life, his voice was always lifted for the good of his generation and 
of future generations and for his fellow men. He had that tempera- 
ment which taught him that the most evil seed that can be sown in a 
community is the seed of suspicion and of doubt, and that the best spirit 
that can be nurtured is that of faith and confidence and chanty and 
integrity. Therefore he inculcated the hopeful spirit in his fellow men. 
He was the sunlight in every social circle of his friends. He was like 
a "rainbow in the gloom." The language of his ordinary conversation 
turned the corners of thought so abruptly and so swiftly that there was 
constant, epigrammatic and inimitable illumination. He was the prince 
of good cheer and one of the happiest integers of human individuality 
in our serious, struggling world. 

A Heart Fatigued. 

After all the years of toil and exciting contest for a full decade 
in the House of Representatives, and with tremendously exhausting 
work in the Chautauqua service, in which he earned substantial profits, 
and with all the burdens and embarrassments of his senatorial career, 
his great heart began to wane. The strongest machinery must finally 
break. Even steel and iron and hardest granite are not impervious or 
imperturbable. Whoever touches and commands the hearts of others 
must always give up something of his own. So many hearts had been 
touched, so many souls had been stirred in all those great campaigns, 
that finally his own was worked to the mortal limit. Many the time I 
met him late at night and early in the morning in those fatiguing cam- 
paigns when we were out on the road, sometimes sixty to seventy days, 
and home, maybe three or four nights in all that time, sleeping perhaps 
four or five hours the night, and having a splendid time, we thought, at 
that. And they were splendid and historic days when Iowa had the 
greatest corps of campaigners in the country; when she had two mem- 
bers in the Cabinet and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; 
when aforetime Tom Reed had said, ''You have so much talent in 
your state, it is impossible to do justice to it and to the other states in 
Committee appointments." 

It was a great honor and a sweet exultation to stand with the van 
of such a delegation, and the inspiration of it moved the heart of our 
friend to faster beating until 'twas overworked. 



Meridians of Fame. 

But think of the many souls of history that have reached their 
greatest power and sometimes have worn out their physical machinery 
before their suns had passed the periods of their brilliant and powerful 
meridians, yes, even before the shadows fell towards the east. 

Many have been the soldiers who have won their laurels early. 
The hero of Ravenna was only twenty-two. Italy was conquered 
twice by military heroes only five and twenty. Innocent III has 
been called the despot of Christendom at thirty-seven and at that same 
age Lord Byron died. Victor Hugo wrote "Bug Jargal" at fifteen, 
and Pascal was a great author at sixteen and died at thirty-seven. 
Edmund Burke was author of " The Sublime and Beautiful" at 
twenty-six, and Grattan entered the Irish Parliament and fame at 
twenty-nine. Richelieu was bishop at twenty-three and Secretary of 
War and State at the early age of thirty-one. Raphael had become 
illustrious and died at thirty-seven. William Pitt, the contemporary 
of our own illustrious Hamilton, and two years his junior, inherited the 
prestige that gave him a seat in Parliament at thirty-one, through the 
influence of the Duke of Rutland. He was Chancellor of the 
Exchequer at twenty-three, and First Lord of the Treasury and Chan- 
cellor, and practically the controlling power of England, at hventy 
five and held that position for seventeen continuous years, dying at 
forty-six. 

Soft Dreams and Mighty Strides. 

Dolliver inherited no political prestige. He had no Duke of 
Rutland for a sponsor. The clifty hills and lofty mountains of Vir- 
ginia were his great godfathers and the honeyed valleys of that roman- 
tic birthland whispered their soft dreams into his eager, boyhood ears. 
The rivers and the hills of loyal Illinois gave welcome to his trudging 
weary feet and encouraged his exalted hope. The rolling plains and 
honeysuckled woodlands of our river-bordered Iowa sang thrice wel- 
come to the bright-eyed, continental wayfarer and won his wondrous 
heart and scintillating brain for its historic heritage and gave him all 
the rich and precious gifts within its political and lavish power. He 
went out for us and won the successive battles of his life by brilliant 
strife and illustrious zeal. 

19 



His great heart impelled the blood to his fertile brain in many 
years of swift, ambitious strides, sometimes his judgment differing with 
yours and sometimes with mine. But it matters not, he had fought 
the battles of our cause on many a brilliant day, and our tears of ex- 
ultation for the fame of our great state were mingled on many glorious 
occasions. Every Hawkeye was proud of his chieftain, proud to 
have such a splendid champion in the great arenas of public life and 
on the popular stage. No matter if his clarion voice sounded senti- 
ments, maybe discordant with our own, he had bared his breast for 
the Grand Old Man in that final hour of both their great careers. 

Home at Last to Rest. 

And then at last he came home to rest. He had thought always 
in his recent years of the delightful and peaceful prospect of enjoy- 
ing the habitude which he had selected and paid for with his hon- 
orable and strenuous earnings, consisting of some broad acres over 
there in the magnificent middle of our state, "touched by two rivers," 
as he described it himself, and situated there beside the city of his 
early friends. His plans for its improvement and perfection had not 
yet been completed, but they were in the apple of his eye and heart, and 
he sat himself down on the porch of his town-house home, in the midst 
of his charming family of wife and children, where he could see the 
undulating landscape of his future, rural habitude, in contemplation, 
and mused over it all in those dearest days of our best October season, 
when the vines were running over the sunlit hedges in all the golden 
glory of that rich, autumnal time; and with all apparent faith in the 
restitution of his health, with his bright soul shining in his eyes and in 
his usual laughing mood, he counted his pulse beats up to seven, refus- 
ing to count himself out — like the fighter that he was — but the phy- 
sician counted more and feebler pulse beats. It seemed as though 
Infinite Mercy spared our friend the usual suffering and pain that at- 
tends the exit of great souls. There is no evidence that he suffered 
even for a moment a gloomy or troubled apprehension. His jovial 
hand seemed lifted from the grasp of his latest visitor by the hand of 
The Infinite One. 



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